Today, in his remarks at the Business Software Alliance Cybersecurity Forum, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced that the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has assumed responsibility to coordinate and facilitate the implementation of the Obama administration’s National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE). NIST will work across the government to ensure the agencies involved coordinate their efforts to successfully implement the four tracks necessary to meet initiative’s objectives.

This initiative expands the government’s cyber security education efforts into a national focus that will establish an operational, sustainable, and continually-improving cyber security education program for the public and private sectors focused on sound cyber practices. This expansion, and the new overall coordination role by NIST, is in response to the president’s priorities as expressed in his Cyberspace Policy Review in 2009.

To meet the initiative’s objectives, efforts have been structured into the following four tracks: